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| Details |
| Author: | Athena |
| Summary: | After a big day of warlock tests and spontaneous social events, Melancholy retreats to her cabin aboard the Lady Blanche, and gets a visit from her suitor, Bryn Baird. She reveals her misgivings about her future, and Baird resolves to solve the problem before it has a chance to alter her perception of her Fate. 6300~ words. |
| Rating: | A for Adults Only 18+ |
Chain: Melyn
It's been a day of many agendas for the warlock apprentice, and with the afternoon sun in full sway in the harbor of Lion's Landing, she's withdrawn to her cabin aboard the Lady Blanche, pouring over her thus far collected notes of the crew as she works on memorizing a substantial amount of names and personal facts to be able to perform an emergency summons at any time. The door is shut, and no noise escapes from within — because even the cronchiest of crackers is not so loud as that, even with a snacky warlock using them as a reward and incentive system for her studies.
There is a courteous, light knock on her door.
This is an unremarkable occurrence in most circumstances, but it is probably a knock Melancholy recognizes by now; she's just more accustomed to hearing it at 8 PM.
Melancholy knocks over her notebook in her haste to answer it, and the door practically flies open. She's still wearing the same outfit as earlier, the trousers outfit, but her expression is altered significantly from the socializing smiles of before — it's now a wide, excited grin of anticipation.
Behind her is the sight of her cabin. At least, it must be hers, as assigned and the fact that she's in it, but there would be no easy way to tell otherwise: aside from the notebook on the floor, the bag of snacks nearby, and another cute little black bag (the Mildly- Frustrated Void) at the foot of the bed where a sea chest might ordinarily go, there's nothing of her whatsoever in the room.
"Hi," says Baird, and flashes his quicksilver smile. He has changed from the armor of the afternoon, and is dressed in his familiar, casual clothes. "Can I come in, or would you like to take a walk with me?"
She glances behind him for any immediate observer, and seeing no one, reaches out and grabs the front of his shirt to pull him both into her room and directly to her, with the extremely limited amount of force she's capable of pulling with, her eyes on his lips — which is probably an answer.
Force is not really required to pull Baird to her, as he is already moving that way. He steps into the cabin, shuts the door behind him, and leans back against it to pull Melancholy, in turn, against him. He takes her jaw in one hand and kisses her feverishly.
There must be something going around, because you might think from the way she kisses him that he's been holding onto some antidote to a deadly fever on his lips, and she has seconds to get to it; the secret passcode to access this antidote solution must also be Bryn, which she repeats several times between frantic doses, just in case maybe he missed it the first few times she said it. And all the while, she must have also developed a rare, but severe, allergy to his clothes, and the only solution is to try to strip him of them as quickly as possible, starting with his shirt.
His urgent need to continue kissing her whilst also having his shirt removed makes the latter a bit of a complicated proposition, and there is a certain amount of ungainly tangling in his own sleeves involved before he manages emphatically to free himself from sartorial tyranny. The shirt is flung at the floor like it has caused him personal offense, and then he is attempting to return the clothing-removal favor for Melancholy. (Whose clothing, it must be said, is decidedly more complicated.)
She goes for the hat — probably because it involves a long hat pin as well as four other hidden hairpins and requires both knowledge of where those are and two hands — and both it and the veil are discarded alongside his shirt in the growing Offenders Pile. It's only after she's unveiled that Melancholy sets her hands along his jaw, and finally breaks a kiss to draw back enough to look at him, and really speak with purpose.
"Bryn?" Her lips are swollen and her eyes are more pupil than anything as she seeks out his.
"Melancholy?" he replies. His voice is husky and his pale gaze dilated and almost dazed-looking. "What?" He lifts his hands to cradle her face between them.
She looks at him with something a step beyond the pretty pleading eyes she often resorts to — these are needy, begging eyes, complete with a touch of tremble to her bottom lip before she speaks, pressing herself against him.
"Fuck me." It's said along with those eyes, like if she didn't beg for it, that maybe he wouldn't, but she needs him to, very badly, so she's trying to convince him. "Now."
(In case, perhaps, he thought she was making an appointment request for later.)
"Fuck, yes," he tells her fervently, and pushes himself upright from the door to begin steering her back toward the bed. It is not a long way back, in a cabin this size. "I missed you," he says. "Last night. Unveil'd Melancholy."
She nods her own echoing sentiment, as she steps backwards, a hand out behind her to try to feel for where things are in the unfamiliar room. "I dressed up for you," she tells him, and tries to give him a smile, but it wobbles on her lips, so she puts it on his instead.
Her hand slides down his chest to his pants, which are starting to offend her.
He hisses a soft indrawn breath at the touch and reaches for his waistband himself. "Get that off," he says roughly. "All of your… that. Off. Show me."
Melancholy sets to the task. She sits down, to undo her boots, and then straightens, flicking the latch hooks of the corset up, and removing it, then tackling the blouse beneath, unbuttoning it down with soft, quick rubbings of her fingers over them. She's not quite bold, not quite shy as she opens it.
"I'm sure it looked nicer when I first put it on last night. But I didn't know when I would see you, so I just…" Left it on. In case he came by.
She always has on nice sets of underwear. She likes them pretty, and lacey, and coordinated in blacks with her rose motifs.
This is a few steps above that, even for her. This is something made for a man's gaze. It's a strapless, structured teddy, nearly completely see through so that it seems like it's made of shadow — actually made of the tiniest, delicate netting lace with swirls of wild, climbing roses studded with tiny chips of amethyst that glitter when she moves. Each nipple is caught between a little open window of silken fabric, which leads down in a dual dark plum lacing towards her hips, each ending in a tie that keeps the teddy on, laced closed.
She undoes the buttons and closures of her trousers, and arches up to slide them off her, revealing that there is a similar window of silken lined open access at the juncture of her thighs. Four lines of garter straps leading from the teddy hold up fishnet tights to her mid-thighs.
She smiles at him, and reaches up to undo the bun that holds her hair up, to let it down, frizzy and wild from the humidity of the jungle. It's no longer perfectly curled, and her makeup isn't meticulous anymore. But, she dressed up for him.
"Ta-daaa," she says.
"Melancholy," he breathes, staring. For a moment he seems to have forgotten that he's supposed to be undressing too, and then he remembers and resumes the task with hasty, clumsy urgency, his gaze transfixed the whole time. "I'm sorry. I didn't come. I wanted to. God damn."
"You're here now." She reaches for him, with that same needy, begging look, parting her thighs.
Wordlessly he sinks to his knees before her. He gently urges her thighs even wider, and bends and turns his head to kiss the bare white inside of her thigh framed between the garter straps. His hand trails up the back of her calf to the top of her stocking, exploring the texture of the fishnet and then the silken skin above it.
She shifts restlessly in response, setting her hands at the base of his neck. One slides up into the short curls, and the other moves to stroke along his jaw and right ear, her nails lightly scratching and pressing along the lobe. She's more careful with them now to not leave a mark, but she teases the possibility more.
He trails hot kisses up the smooth stretch of thigh and then pauses reverently over that opening in the delicate silk. She can feel the warmth of his breath on her and then he bends his head again to slip his tongue between her petals.
Her thighs close more around him, as she wraps both around his back, rocking herself against his tongue. One hand stays in hair, but the other moves closer to her mouth, fingers pressing on her lips to keep herself quieter.
Baird does his best, with skilled and avid tongue and fingers, to make her less quiet.
It's taking an unusual amount of time for her to reach a climax. The more she tries to stay as quiet as possible, the more elusive that peak becomes, like a mirage. Her legs have begun to shake, her eyes are crushed closed, and her cheeks are flushed red, but she's still only hovering there, pressing the back of her hand against her mouth to muffle the sounds that do escape, and wildly squeezing at his shoulder.
At length Baird draws back to study her. "Move up, honey," he tells her softly. "On the bed." He rises and climbs onto the narrow berth with her.
She blinks her eyes open, breathing heavily, and puts both hands down on the bed to move herself up, laying back half out of necessity. She bites down on her lower lip.
Baird shifts to lie over her, nudging her thighs apart again with one knee. His hand skims up the delicate silk netting of her teddy, and his palm brushes against her exposed nipple. "I'm going to fuck you, honey. Hard. If you want to be quiet and don't think you can, you can bite me. I don't mind." He bends his head to kiss her slowly, and then rolls to position himself between her legs.
She gets a dazed look to her at the words — and that elusive peak inches closer. She kisses him back as she wraps her legs back around his hips, and her arms over his back, her hands balled into fists so she won't scratch him on accident. She says something against his lips, and presses up to meet him insistently.
He presses back, pushing smoothly into her with a roll of his hips. He does not linger in the sensation but — as promised — is moving within her at once, a calculated, forceful rhythm. He breaks the kiss to watch her face intently, hot-eyed and unblinking, as he thrusts again and again, driving her up that elusive crest.
Her eyes are open, where they usually close, as she looks back at him, and they start to roll upwards, halt, and she bites down hard on her own lip twice before he sees the words forming. Bryn. Bite. Where?
"Shoulder," he grits out, and bends his own head to bury his face in the crook of her neck as if in demonstration. (He does not bite her. He continues unabatedly to fuck her.)
She arches up into him, pressing her face against his left shoulder; there's the silken lush stroke of her lips, and then a sharp, hard press of teeth that's going to leave a significant bruise behind — followed immediately by the muffled sound of a scream as she comes so hard it shakes her body, and she tightens and pulses around him like she's trying to crush him inside her.
It goes on and on longer than usual, as she rides it out, gasping and whimpering into his skin, and then trembling sighs as she comes down in languorous flutters.
He makes a stifled sound of his own when she bites him, and as she finds her crescendo, he presses fervently into her with a groan as he comes.
He remains briefly languid and heavy atop her, his face against her neck, as he catches his breath. With the last of her sighs, he carefully lifts himself up again to shift back alongside her. He props his head on his hand and lays his other hand over her breast again. "What an exquisite Melancholy," he says softly.
She flops to her side to follow him, dragging a leg back over one of his. Some of her eye makeup has creased and rubbed where she pressed it into his shoulder, and several curls are sweat glistened and sticking around her face and neck. She's heavily flushed, still breathing deeply, as she lifts her eyelids up as though they are immensely heavy, weighed down by dark lashes.
She smiles at him, wide and happy. "'I know / that all my body burns for you. / Surges from some vast ocean ebb and flow / my hot veins through,'" she recites, and her eyes drop to where she's left her latest Melancholy Mark'd. She winces in sympathy.
He doesn't seem to take notice of the mark, but lifts his hand from her breast to cup the side of her face. "Listen," he says, gazing a little dreamily at her. "Do you hear that? Can you feel it?"
In the hush, the tramp of feet and occasional raised voice or gust of laughter are distantly audible from the deck above. Beneath that, though, is the constant underlying harmony of the ship's soft creaks and sighs, the lullaby ripple of the sea against the hull, and the slight, sleepy rise-and-fall movement of the water below them.
Melancholy freezes, holding her breath, as she listens intently — more as if for the sound of boots making their way rapidly towards her door, maybe to inquire what those sounds were, than to the general symphony of the ship. "I don't know what I'm listening for, or trying to feel," she tells him after a moment passes, and no one knocks on the door.
He smiles and leans in to kiss her brow. "The ship," he says softly. "The water. Under everything else."
She relaxes. Oh. Hear the ship. Not listen for the incoming sex police. Whew.
"Yes. It was part of what kept me up late last night. I had a difficult time with it, until I just imagined that the soft sort of groaning of the ship was just some restless undead passing by a window when the house creaks when the summer sets in, and then I was mostly nostalgic for home — Duskwood," she says lightly, her honey gaze on his face, and then it drops. Guilt dampens her expression, and hollows her voice. "You miss it. Being on the ship. Sleeping on the ship."
He furrows his brow and touches his thumb gently to her lips. "I'm not leaving it forever, and I've spent plenty of time ashore before. And I can hear the sea from the fortress. I wanted you to hear it, and love it." He studies her uncertainly. "I'm sorry. That you didn't. Don't."
"I don't know it yet. It's different. I can't say if I will love it or not. I'm not used to moving around so much from place to place. I've slept in more places in the past five months than in the entire 25 years before it combined times two," she says. "Besides, I don't think it would be fair to judge it by a single night like last night. It was — " Hurt ripples over her expression before she pushes it off roughly. "I had a lot on my mind."
She pulls up a smile, looking at his chest, and then at hers, with its fancy lingerie. "I'm sorry you didn't get to see this in all its real glory. I had a whole look. There was a dress, and my hair turned out pretty last night but flopped today — you know how curls can be — and I even had one of my party shoes sent, so I could wear them for you. Today I've been in the jungle fighting tigers and saurok, and on the gun deck rushing in and out, and I'm sweaty and frizzy."
"I'm sorry too, but only because you are and I hate to let you down. You're my gorgeous Melancholy, and this is… if it was any more spectacular I might not have known what to do with you." He flashes a smile. "But someday you will show it to me in all its real glory, party shoes and all. I wouldn't miss it." His thumb skims her cheekbone. "What's wrong? I am sorry I didn't make it, I missed you like hell."
Her eyes shine with the start of tears. "I missed you, too. It was — " Again, she cuts herself off, and veers another direction, but at least this one stays adjacent. She strokes a hand up to his chest, scratching her nails lightly over his heart. "It's going to be strange, here, isn't it? I don't know how I'm supposed to act with you out there. If we even can do something like take a walk together. Captain Fallon…" Her voice fades out for a second before she clears her throat and tries again.
"Captain Fallon said that I need to call you Leftenant Baird, and to not create an impression of being overly familiar with you. I don't want to do anything that could harm your image or your career, and I tried all that today. I even tried just not standing next to you so directly, because I thought that might be right, but it felt wrong, and I didn't like it. I like being there, at your side. It feels like where I'm supposed to be," she tells him.
He frowns, a downward twist at the corner of his mouth. "I like you at my side, too. Calling me Lieutenant Baird is… pretty standard form, I'm afraid. He calls Mrs. Shine 'Mrs. Shine' in company, and she lives at his house. He also calls his wife 'Her Grace' in public, but I'm pretty sure they're familiar in private. She's pregnant with their fourth kid." He kisses her brow again. "And you can call me Bryn all you want in private."
He studies her, his gaze soft with concern. "Captain Fallon wasn't telling you that to imply you're harming me or something. I mean, he probably just meant it like… no more than he would harm Mrs. Shine by calling her Lena in front of the crew. It's just a respect thing. And it's mutual. I'd call you Miss Grimlocke. But you're my unveil'd Melancholy."
"I think in my case, the Captain might have meant — " She stops that unhappy thought, too, and pulls up a smile instead. "But, no, I know what it is. Captain Fallon explained, and it's not uncommon in Society to stay strict with titles and so on out of respect, especially the higher ranks, like a duchess. That's why I was so happy when you said I could call you 'Bryn.' To me, I heard it as the indication that we'd grown close. Although at the time, I didn't realize so many people called you 'Bryn,'" she says, not knowing the actual cause of that particular recent trend.
"It's also why the reverting feels like a strange distancing. Hearing you call me 'Miss Grimlocke' sounds like you're upset with me, or like we've ended our relationship and gone back to formality. It will take some getting used to. And if I can't even call you by your first name, something like holding your hand seems entirely off the table, just like if we were courting with a chaperone. The only time you could do something like that would be temporary and formal, like escorting me somewhere, or helping me onto a gryphon."
"Hey, Melancholy," says Baird. He touches her lip again. "Can I tell you something?" His expression is very serious but his pale eyes are bright with humor.
"Yes, of course." She lifts her eyes to his — there's no humor in hers. They're dejected, and guilty, and tired. She tries to smile more for him, and pushes the expression out of her eyes, blinking several times.
"I can tell you exactly who calls me 'Bryn' instead of 'Baird.' It's Phryne, Bryling, my aunt and uncle, my cousins, a couple of other people at home in the Harbor, Sil and another guy I've known since I was a kid, and you. And all of your friends you've introduced me to." He flashes his smile, unable to contain it longer. "Which is okay, to be clear. I'm happy for your friends to call me whatever you think they should call me. But when I said you could call me 'Bryn,' that is what I meant."
Melancholy's expression drops in unpleasant surprise at the reveal that it is her who has caused such a large ripple of informality, and thus, perhaps been giving license to view him in a more familiar, less respectful light — as she has just been warned against doing. Her gaze falls and roams chaotically over his bare chest. Her lips form the word oh, but it doesn't seem voiced. She swallows and tries to speak up.
"So it was my fault," she says. "I'll — I'll try to fix it. Although, I don't know who exactly you mean by 'my friends.' I have only the one, Theris. I'll speak to him, though. And to any of the others you mean. I'm sorry. I didn't know. I do now."
"Melancholy. Honey." He strokes the side of her face. "I don't mean people should stop. I don't mean you did anything wrong. Hell, Lady Cressidha maybe got it from Sil, I don't know. I just want to make sure you know that when I said you could call me it, I did mean it like that. That I wanted us to be… closer. I just don't want you to think I didn't mean that.
"But I don't mind what anyone calls me, honest I don't. You don't have to speak to Theris or anyone about it." He studies her, his humor faded. "Honey. Melancholy. It's okay. I promise it is. I love you and everything's okay. Did I upset you?"
Melancholy shakes her head, but she shivers like she's cold. "No, no. I've upset myself. I care what they call you, especially since those are people who might visit me here, on the ship. And that they might be heard calling you Bryn and take it as disrespectful familiarity, or implications of your relationship to them you didn't ask for, and I'll know that it's because of me." She raises up those wounded honey eyes to his. "I don't want to do anything that makes your life worse, that does anything to alter things from the way they're supposed to be. And I'm already doing them."
He knits his brow. "No, you aren't. Hell, Melancholy, you've — first of all, just being with you makes me better. Makes me feel better. Everything about you, Remarkable Melancholy. And second, once I met you and knew I meant to keep you, it pushed me to put myself in a better position. It can only be good for me, this officer stuff, the Academy, and wanting you is the push that got me going in that direction."
She shivers again, and presses herself closer to his warmth. "But in the meantime, I'm keeping you from your home, and from your proper place, and — " Her lower lip trembles, even though she tries to smile. "I'm sorry to say that you were wrong. You said some time ago that you thought Captain Fallon would like me. He doesn't. Although, I suppose we agree on the reasons why he shouldn't." Her tone doesn't manage to hit lightness, and instead, it warbles on tears that eventually form up and then, spill over. "That I don't deserve you, and that I'm the terrible end of the trade off, being here instead of you. I told you I was." She whispers morosely, "I don't think I'm supposed to be here."
"Wait. Wait, wait." Baird pushes himself up to stare down at her, bewildered. "First of all that's horseshit, and if Captain Fallon thinks it I'll tell him so. Second of all, I don't know how he can think it. If he does, then he's gotten something twisted somewhere. He will like you, honey, I swear. If he doesn't already think you're the greatest, then it's just because… I dunno, he's been wound up ever since we've been just sitting here off the coast, with the construction and everything, and there was some bad shit that happened at home that he couldn't handle because he was stuck here… he's been in a mood. But if he's being pissy at you, that's out of line."
He reaches down to touch her cheek again, this time brushing a tear away. "Melancholy. Don't forget you're my luckydo. Very lucky me. You're the most incredible girl I ever met. Anyone who thinks you don't deserve me — " He gives an incredulous laugh. "That's wild."
She gazes up at him with those tear filled eyes. "I don't," she admits, even as she grabs at his hand, and holds onto it with a shaking squeeze. She shrugs with one shoulder. "I've known all along you're so much better than I am. You're important. Bryn, you're the third in command of the flagship of the Fallon Fleet, and everyone knows that the Fallon Fleet is the most impressive part of the navy." Well, anyone who reads Naval News for mentions of her older brother, anyway. "You're brilliant and capable, and entrusted with secretive missions from one of the most powerful noble houses in all of Azeroth. You've fought in wars and when someone talks about you being here, it's with relief that finally, someone will handle it properly."
Another, softer, weaker shrug. "I'm just some silly girl from Duskwood, trying to do at least one meaningful thing before I die again." She pulls up a smile from somewhere, apologetic, not unlike the first time she told him, as she says, "But I love you. And I think I'm just that selfish."
"Melancholy." He looks stricken, and lowers himself down again so he can gather her against him. "First of all, I didn't start out important. I started out a street kid who decided he didn't want to be a carpenter and hopped ship to go to sea. I'm nobody from nowhere, and yeah, I know that's not true anymore and I can say it's not true because I worked hard to get where I am. And I still hear voices sometimes saying that I've gotten high enough, maybe too high, maybe I should quit aiming higher. But fuck 'em."
He strokes her hair, tangling his fingers in it. "Everything about you is extraordinary. Not selfish. The thing that happened to you — a lot of people would have gone through something like that and just been… paralyzed. Just wanted to be home and safe forever after that. But you decided you were going to be more, bigger, you were going to help people. You came all the way out here from Duskwood to the middle of a war zone and you've brought down mogu tyrants. And you taught me to ride a bike. If anything about you is selfish, Melancholy, then I hope you go on being selfish as hell. You should want stuff. You should want everything, because you deserve it. Especially, though, if I get a vote on the matter, you should want me. Because I love you."
She gets the rest of herself as tangled up in him as she can, legs and arms, although she keeps her face tilted up towards his, her lips visible. "I want you more than I've ever wanted anything in my whole life. If I had some sort of magical wish granted to me, I don't think I would be able to spend it on anything else, even if I knew I might do something amazing with it like stop the Burning Legion — I'd spend it on you," she tells him, genuinely meaning every word.
"I've thought about how someone else might have looked at all that's happening, and come to a conclusion that you would probably be better off if they walked away, on your behalf. But I can't. I won't. As long as you love me, I'm never going anywhere away from you. I'll just keep finding every way there is to stay with you." Another smile that presses a tear to the edge of her eyes. "Assuming you don't think of it first, of course."
"You'd better stay with me," he tells her severely. "It probably would be bad for my career if I had to take off and chase you down. And I would. So keep your magical wishes, because you already got me." He bends to kiss her lightly.
She reaches up to pull him against her harder, as she kisses him deeply.
He kisses her back with his full attention, transfixed by the soft wonder of her mouth, his hands straying aimlessly over silken white skin and intricate black lace.
He draws back at last, starts to speak, changes his mind and kisses her some more. This time he slides an arm around her and shifts, rolling onto his back and drawing her with him, to drape her half across him.
She moves a hand to gather her hair and make sure it's draped over her back, as she keeps her body mostly against his for warmth.
Now he breaks the kiss and gazes up at her, winter-pale eyes intent. "Will you do me a favor?" he asks her quietly.
"Yes," she says immediately and then oh as she thinks about it. "Well…" Is there something he could ask her she wouldn't do? Considering. She looks into his eyes while she does. List check says there isn't anything. She smiles at him again. "Yes."
He smiles back at her. "Don't give up on the Captain yet, okay? I'm not saying you have to like him, or forgive him if he's been rude to you, but… give him another chance, okay? For me? Don't be nervous of him. He's a good guy in a tough job and he's been having a bad couple of months, but that's got nothing to do with you and shouldn't be your problem. I'll sort it out."
Melancholy blinks at him in confusion. "Give him another chance for what? I've done everything he's asked me to do. I — I can't help but be nervous of him now. He's the king and emperor of the kingdom I'm staying in; he's on the House of Nobles; he's married to a duchess; he's head of the wealthiest noble house in Azeroth; and he's in charge of your entire future. And he doesn't like me, and doesn't approve of me being with you. That's not a comfortable place to be," she says. "Let me try to explain."
She sits up more as if this will help sort out her thoughts. "I can't always tell when someone does or doesn't like me. It's one of the reasons I don't enjoy Society events, because everyone lies and pretends so much, it's hard to know who really means what they say or how they act. I thought things were going well, until dinner. We were talking about Lena, and how she sets a good example, and I brought up that I wasn't intentionally following that example with you, as a Leftenant of the Captain's, like Shine was.
"And his whole demeanor changed." She illustrates this by waving a hand over her face. "And he started talking about how Shine at least was a former Leftenant when Lena 'got to him.' How you're his man. And how he's known you for so long, with that implication, of course, that I'm the interloper." She sets her hand down on his chest and scratches lightly at him until she realizes what she's doing, and then she lays her hand flat. "Lena tried to talk about how amazing you are, and he said similar things of how obviously you're so high up, and I — I don't like to talk about those kinds of personal things with someone I don't know if they'll take it and say something disparaging about it, or make a joke of it at my expense. But I didn't want to stay silent, because I didn't want him to think I didn't know. So, I said you were wonderful, and the most incredible person I've ever met.
"And he just looked at me like that, all sarcastic, and said how he'll have to stop hiring warlocks, with the reasoning boiling down to if they act like me, taking his Leftenants away. Lena said that we'll have to prove that we're worth it, then, and of course it doesn't mean her, it meant I have to prove it, and I haven't. It was awful. It was exactly everything that made me stop going to Society events and talking to nobles like him. I tried apologizing, and he said it was 'just a joke,' which I've always hated people saying, because I never know what to say. That it's a joke to them, but it's something that matters to me? That's only worse. And I can't say anything to him, anyway.
"I've been thinking ever since how maybe I shouldn't be trying to be a Fleet Warlock, if it's not already too late for making it worse for the next warlock after me, and if the Captain resents that I'm here instead of you. I was thinking maybe I might see if Cobalt Company would hire me now as I am, and if they did, then I could end my apprenticeship, and move off the ship, and you could come back, and maybe it would fix it," she says morosely.
"Okay, whoa." Baird sits up too. "Okay. I don't know what crawled up his ass but let me talk to him, okay? Don't — I don't want you to give up on the fleet, Melancholy. Not yet. If it keeps being miserable, if you're miserable, obviously I'm not going to keep you here feeling bad. That's the last thing I want. And Cobalt Company does seem great. But… if you do end up going to Cobalt, then we definitely wouldn't be together, because I'll be with the fleet and you'll be… wherever Cobalt is, doing Cobalt stuff.
"I don't want you to be miserable here. I want you to love it here. I think you can, I do. I might be wrong, but I think. And if you do stay with the fleet, then we stay together. Even if it means not right now, because I have to lay some groundwork. But we will, in the long run."
Melancholy tears up again. "We can't be together right now no matter what — at least working together like this. Only one of us can be on the ship. I just don't know that it's supposed to be me," she says, and reaches for his hand to take. "I don't want to come between you and Captain Fallon. I don't want you to have a falling out, or give him reason to doubt in your future here. It would devastate me if I've done something to ruin your career. I can't bear the thought."
"You haven't. Okay? I promise you haven't. Melancholy, honey, you've been here two days. I'll sort it all out, you'll see. You promise to let me try? You promise to have some faith in me?" Baird stares intently at her. "And I want to be clear: I love it aboard this ship, but I've spent my time ashore too, and this is no different from that. I'm just on shore leave a while. And this is better than regular shore leave because I'm not just at home ashore while the Blanche is off doing something else, I'm right over there at the fortress and you're here and I can come see you and visit my ship at the same time. You haven't hurt me, you're not making me sad. You're the best."
The tears spill over again, but she leans forward to flop onto his shoulder, her head turned towards his left ear. She unintentionally lands on his bite mark. "It doesn't feel like I am," she says. "But I won't make any decisions yet. I'm still making my lists about it, and I have to think about it. I'll think about what you've said, and I'll wait for what you think about it after some time. That's only fair."
"Yeah," he agrees. "That's fair." He slides a hand into her hair again to clasp her against his shoulder, bite mark and all. "I love you, Remarkable Melancholy Jane Grimlocke. Just… remember that, okay? Trust that, and trust me."
"'We have but faith: we cannot know; / for knowledge is of things we see / and yet we trust it comes from thee, / a beam in darkness: let it grow,'" Melancholy recites, closing her eyes, and he can feel the weight of her on him, relaxing in a hold of trust that he has her. "Okay."
"Okay," he says softly. "I've got you, honey. It'll be okay."